Profile of rofltehcat

He is referring to Area of Effect. So for example you have an explosion: Soviet Mortar stats

Let's say the mortar shell lands somewhere and causes an explosion. Its Area Effect Near Distance is 1.5 and the Damage Near multiplier is 1.0. So inside a circle of the radius 1.5 the explosion deals 100% of the mortar shell's damage, so 80 damage if the target is inside.

Its "Distance Far" is 3.0 and the damage multiplier for "far" is 0.25. So if the target is standing exactly 3 from the explosion's center, (and if hit), it takes 25% of the mortar's damage, 20.
Actually it even takes those 25% damage if it is farther away than the distance of 3 because the third zone, (Area Radius) is 6. So a unit between 3 and 6 from the center can take 20 damage.

Between "Far" (3.0) and "Near" (1.5) it scales in a linear manner. You can see this at the top of the page I linked: The blue damage line is at a high level (100%) until it reaches a distance of 1.5, then drops linear until it is at 25% at 3.0 and then stays at 25% all the way out to 6.

The same counts for the explosion's accuracy: It has a "Near" accuracy of 5 and a "Far" accuracy of 0.6. So between "Near distance (1.5)" and "Far distance (3.0)" the accuracy of the explosion decreases but inside the Near circle and in the ring between 3 and 6 distance units, it is constant.
This means that if the target is between 3 to 6 distance units from the explosion's center, the explosion has a chance of only 60% to deal damage at all. This is why sometimes some units don't take damage despite being "closer" to the explosion and some "farther" away still take damage. It is just random.

The "accuracy/damage scaling" is basically just a linear interpolation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_interpolation
This can be applied to most stats (accuracy, splash damage, cooldown multipliers) in the game, from the accuracy of small arms to the biggest explosions.

From the stats, they are basically Panzergrenadiers with 1 squad member more and cheaper reinforcement cost. I'd have thought they deal less damage but apparently they are using the same weapons.
So the 50 ammunitions is probably fair, especially when you want to skip T2, which is probably an interesting idea since you can then still get Panzerschrecks (on a mobile platform) to support your Pz4/protect your Ostwind and deal with Su-85s. The synergy in this commander isn't bad, although you'll need a lot of ammunitions, so no LMG42s.

Their real strength is that they won't bleed you as much manpower as Panzergrenadiers would.
Putting them at 1 CP would have given them around the same timing as Panzergrens though (when using T2).

Barton did a Osttruppen -> snipers -> Flamer HTs + Pak + Panzerschrecks earlier today vs. Apfelsaft on his stream and it looked like a lot of fun. He'd constantly convert his fuel into munitions and use those piles of ammo for his flamer HTs, Panzerschrecks, lots of Panzerfausts, eclipsing in a lot of railway artillery, eventually destroying Apfelsaft's base.

Looked like a lot of fun and they are two of the best 1v1 players. I'll probably try that, too... though my sniper micro isn't as great, so maybe I'll try it with a MG+Mortar or something. I guess the most underrated part of this commander is the fuel to ammunitions conversion.

I want stats
I can't even look them up myself because the patch seems to have broken the modding tools... would really like to compare it to the Su-76, they could fill comparable roles.

Does it still have the damage reduction? From the patch notes there was no mention of the other stuff nor that it would stay the same or even removed...

Is there a new version for the sga unpacker? Mine doesn't work anymore